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Get ready for ads that follow you from one device to the next

December 10, 2012

(Credit: Drawbridge)

To make advertising pay as audiences move over to mobile devices, Drawbridge is using statistical methods that rely on anonymous data to track people as they move between their smartphones, tablets, and PCs, MIT Technology Review reports.

Drawbridge works by looking at the cookie data that comes with a request from a mobile or desktop browser or app to an ad exchange, and using its “bridging” algorithm to assess the probability that any two arbitrary cookies from different devices are associated with the same person.

Unlike a method known as device fingerprinting, Drawbridge doesn’t rely on technologies that directly track user activity, or report geolocation or other invasive device identifiers, the company says.

(Credit: Drawbridge)

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Comments (4)

I’m not convinced that the data is not able to uniquely identify you. Carl Sagan once said that it only takes 20 yes or no questions to identify any item in the universe. Certainly, then, it would take far less than that to identify a person.

Thankfully we’re not yet at the stage where these algorithms have the ability to assess your mental acuity. I imagine it would be quite depressing to start being flooded with ads for brain training gizmo’s and intelligence vitamin supplements.

Having said that, I do sometimes eye that ‘Ray & Terry’s” ad with suspicion!

Have faith, Ian. I have been using Lumosity for six months now and my overall brain function has improved 27.97% per month. Fortunately my base starting point was so low my overall IQ is around 95, so the net result is the ads will not meaningfully affect society. I have to go now to stand in line for the space elevator. Bye Ian.